


The Buried Letter

by ShannonXL



Series: Shit My Sherlock Does [9]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Epistolary, Espionage, F/F, Fem!Sherlock, Female Sherlock Holmes, Lesbian Irene, Vignette, girl!sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-06
Updated: 2014-12-06
Packaged: 2018-02-28 10:13:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2728547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShannonXL/pseuds/ShannonXL
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John read all of Sherlock's letters. Or, at least, he thought he did. But there was one withheld. Buried underneath her smoking kit and an open case.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Buried Letter

_I miss you. My darling outlaw, living on the other side of justice. I'll be waiting. Wagering on borrowed time. Double-or-nothing. Praying for more._

After some consideration, Irene pulls the box of matches from the drawer beneath the kitchen counter. She burns the letter over the sink, letting it fall from between her fingers when the flames come too close to her skin. London was a mistake. Too many acquaintances in London, and her face has barely aged. She's too familiar in the big, old city. He coffee is cold, and more bitter than she likes. The pen is where she left it on the windowsill. She tries again. 

_Do you really want to know?_

It feels more suitable. 

* * *

 

_Of course I want to know._

Sherlock's response is immediate and definite. She doesn't reconsider the word choice or syntax. No point. When has she ever wanted to remain ignorant on any subject? In what world has Sherlock Holmes shunned information, of any kind. She feeds on data. She is a glutton for ideas, for words, for every subject and every discovery and every secret. Sherlock Holmes will tear every person apart, every wall to the ground, will go without sleep or sustenance, just to _know_. Why should it be any different, when the subject is the woman she loves?

* * *

 

Irene feigns amusement. After the operation in London went FUBAR (predictable outcome, she should have known), there's nothing left in her that can stand to be anything else. She curls up like a cat in a quiet old cabin, isolated in the mountains. Hiding, for a time. A few days of boredom while she licks her wounds and rebuilds her empire.

_Pandora. That's who you are. So willing to open the lock and see what's inside, despite any warning._

* * *

 

_Hope was in the bottom of that box._

Sherlock thinks her message is dry, but it's also an experiment in how such bald honesty might be received. It's daring. She always knew she dared too much. 

* * *

 

_Yes. Underneath pain and cruelty and death and the lie._

* * *

 

Sherlock almost tears apart the tiny apartment she's holed up in. It's a luxury condo in the Lower East Side, well-furnished and decaying. The building is more than mostly empty, abandoned by an overseas real estate mogul looking to invest in capitol that won't fluctuate the way the Yuan has been lately, with the consistency of lunar sunlight, waxing and waning too often for comfort. The rotten walls shudder around Sherlock's ire. She's not used to being denied. She is too good and cajoling, lying, and outright stealing the things she wants. 

_Irene. there is no part of you that scares me. If you think to frighten me, abandon the thought. If you fear to hurt me, know that you can inflict no pain worse than what I create for myself. I trust you._

What does a thief do when what he wants is to build trust?

* * *

 

Irene can smell the chain-smoking embedded in the thick, coarse paper. She rubs the scent of it into her fingers, so that when she closes her eyes, she can pretend that Sherlock is with her, saying these things into her ears, tracing the words onto her skin. Nicotine rations are running thin. 

_Maybe you shouldn't._

* * *

 

_If you can bear to tell me, I can bear to hear it._

It is a capitulation, a white flag above the trenches. Fitting, that it arrives on Christmas Day. 

* * *

 

She's smoking, when it begins, and Sherlock has the sense to sit still and listen, not rapt, that would be too close, too much. Just absorb, Sherlock. Just observe. 

"We were stationed in Louisiana, my mother was supposed to be French, my father possibly Acadian, but really we were a couple of Anglos." She smiles, the sweet curve of her stiff upper lip giving way. She loves you, Sherlock Holmes. "It was supposed to be a sleeper cell, but she blew our cover early, and her position was terminated."

Her brow tightens.

"That's an odd thing to say. As if the job title was nothing more than an expired duty, as if someone could fire a mother." With no desk to clear out, it would almost have been easy, to retire. 

"Who were you spying on?"

Irene shrugs.

"The files all burned. I suppose I'll never know."

* * *

 

She does it again, slowly, trying not to diminish their time together, wanting instead to fill it with laughter. There are not many funny stories to tell of her adoptive family. Property of a fallen government, a secret bureau, a renamed special police agency. The custody battle must have been bloody, she thinks.

"When I was seven, I accidentally snuck past security at Heathrow. We'd abandoned the mission when we got to the airport. There was some unanticipated layer of security. While the adults were arguing, I got in line to buy a candy. I hadn't thought it through, I didn't have any money and I didn't know where I was, for all I knew I didn't speak the language. But when I got to the end of the line there was no cashier. I'd gone through security and no one had noticed. My handlers hadn't even realized they lost me."

She smiles into Sherlock's shoulder, inhaling the smell of her skin, perspiration tickling her chin, soft like velvet. Sherlock makes a small noise of amusement, in the dark corner of her thoughts memorizing the image of a child in the airport, lost with a chocolate bar. She'll find the footage later, and worry about what came after.

* * *

 

They fight in Paris. Later, Irene will wonder if she brought up the handler she called 'father' in an ill-guided attempt to hurt Sherlock. If she had, it was a waste of time and pent up feeling. Sherlock would never bother with the sensation of guilt with the temptation of new data dangling in front of her. 

"He taught me how to take apart a gun. And how to reassemble it. When I did well, he would take me to the opera." She feels her chin tremble, and resolutely refuses to let that nonsense go on any further. "He was going to teach me to speak Urdu. I could pass for Pakistani. But not if I don't speak the language."

Sherlock's brow goes wiry.

"The opera?"

Irene shrugs.

"It was going to be my cover in America, when we were traveling. But that never happened." Missions cancelled, covers retired. Agents eliminated. The matter of her training became public property.

"I liked the ballet more. I wanted to watch their feet." The dancers moved in a way that looked impossible.

Sherlock frowns.

"Do you want to go to the ballet?"

It catches her by surprise, and Irene can't contain the laugh that bubbles to the surface.

"Right here? Now?"

Sherlock shrugs.

"Why not. We are in Paris."

Irene thinks, sitting in the balcony later that evening, that fighting should never be so easy.

As Sherlock kisses her neck, proving the be an excellent addition to her observation of the dancer's feet (instead of a hinderance or a bother, a distraction or a nuisance). Irene will sigh, and smile sweetly, and thank the heavens for giver her a war she can truly believe in. 

* * *

 

There's a letter attached to a ballet ticket three months later, and Irene shows up at Sherlock's door, wearing a champagne satin dress and purple patent heels, and Sherlock immediately must know what they will feel like flung over her shoulders as she presses her lips between Irene's thighs. 

 _Open it_ , says the letter. And she does.

**Author's Note:**

> More at shitmysherlockdoes.tumblr.com


End file.
